Not Much News On Opening The Closed Friendship TrailBridge

Remember a few months ago I attended packed Friendship TrailBridge meetings filled with folks from both sides of the Bay who wanted the Hillsborough and Pinellas county commissions to work together and fix the closed pedestrian/bicycle bridge and get it re-opened.

Well today, I represented SWFBUD and attended the most recent Friendship TrailBridge meeting. The meeting mood was quiet and there was a small crowd, maybe a dozen or so residents still fighting to get the closed TrailBridge back open.

A TrailBridge two-county committee made up of county commissioners from both Pinellas and Hillsborough, plus a couple of residents, was reviewing what could be done to re-open the TrailBridge. It would cost $15 million to fix the 2.6-mile bridge, which has shown metal deterioration.

I don't get the sense the county commissioners on the TrailBridge committee were too compelled by today's discussion. Pinellas County Commissioner Calvin Harris, a nice enough guy, was checking out his text machine and sending a message during discussion.




Meanwhile Ben Kelly, an aide to Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman who sits on the committee, is so fascinated by the TrailBridge committee's discussion that he's working the keys on his Blackberry.